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World Hasn’t Ended…Yet

“The World Hasn’t Ended” This has got to be my favorite headline ever. It appeared today, Wednesday September 10 in the Sun of London. This feel good story of the year–or maybe of all time–is referring to the physicists in Switzerland who turned on the Large Hadron Collider. This is a 17-mile long racetrack buried 256 feet underground and is designed for accelerating protons into each other and trying to replicate the Big Bang.

The original Big Bang is the “events horizon” for both science and religion past which we have not been able to see. It is the time before time, the moment between Let there Be Light and the Light. Intrepid scientists from all over the world are trying to get back to the first billionth of a second between the bang and the light that they believe happened some 14 billion years ago.*

Now you can easily see the problem here and understand some appropriate anxiety. I mean the Big Bang was, well, pretty big and came out of something infinitely small. In some ways it is still going on as the universe expands and even continues to accelerate. If our scientists created a competing Big Bang, you could well feel that you wouldn’t want to be standing too close. While a whole new universe might be born, our immediate neighborhood might be undergoing some pretty extreme and violent urban renewal.

Of course you shouldn’t feel completely relaxed–not yet. They haven’t turned it up to full strength. This was just a partial power test. The full power test will come on October 21. Then we’ll see what the headline will be on the following day. If there is a following day. Meanwhile this should have read: The World Hasn’t Ended…Yet!

*Some non-scientists dispute the 14 billion year figure and put it at 6,000 years. And all due deference should be given to them.

>>Some non-scientists dispute the 14 billion year figure and put it at 6,000 years. And all due deference should be given to them.<<

No deference to them, Jonathan. They can have their own opinions, but not their own facts. When reality is so consistently twisted and contorted to fit one’s rigid and unyielding worldview, any “facts” about that reality are suspect, if not outright laughable.

jonathan dobrer

Of course I agree. The tone I was looking for was Mark Antony’s eulogy for Caesar…”and Brutas is an honorable man.” Figured our smart and gentle readers could fill in their own Palintology joke.